Florida tribe recruits casino dealers

When the Seminole Tribe of Florida visits Hartford this week, it’s looking for a specific souvenir to take home — experienced table game dealers.

Erica Jacobson

When the Seminole Tribe of Florida visits Hartford this week, it’s looking for a specific souvenir to take home — experienced table game dealers.

The tribe runs seven casinos in Florida, including Hard Rock casinos in Hollywood and Tampa. Having recently negotiated permission from Florida, the tribe will expand its gambling offerings to blackjack, baccarat and other table games this summer.

Connecticut is just one of several stops around the country where the Seminoles hope to hire some of the 3,650 dealers they’ll need.

“To launch games successfully, the tribe believes you have to have experienced dealers,” Seminole spokesman Gary Bitner said last week. “There’s no way to do it except to recruit out of markets where dealers may already exist.”

Connecticut’s casinos do the same kind of recruiting when they need dealers
“It’s only natural for a company in the casino industry to go to other markets and other jurisdictions where there’s qualified, trained, experienced dealers,” Foxwoods Resort Casino spokesman Saverio Mancini said.

Foxwoods has about 2,600 dealers and will add 277 at the MGM Grand at Foxwoods when it opens May 17.

Mohegan Sun President and Chief Executive Officer Mitchell Etess said his casino recognizes the draw of other markets, including Florida and its climate, but feels comfortable it can retain the 2,000 dealers it employs.

“We’re always concerned about it,” he said. “But we are not overly concerned that this activity will cause us to lose a lot of our work force.”

Bitner would not disclose wages being offered, but said they were comparable to those paid in Las Vegas or Atlantic City. The tribe has forged close economic ties with the Mashantucket Pequots in recent months, but Bitner said that had no influence on its choice to recruit in Connecticut.

“There’s no favoritism or non-favoritism implied,” he said. “The Seminole tribe recognizes its growing relationships with other tribes and values that.”

Foxwoods dealer Laureen DeMarchi, 36, of Branford, R.I., said she and her husband visit Florida each February to attend the Daytona 500.

“If it were up to my husband,” she said, “we’d be down there.”

But DeMarchi said she doesn’t plan to attend the Seminole job fair Tuesday and Wednesday at the Connecticut Convention Center. Until she finishes courses to become a paralegal, she said she will stay in New England.

“Being that the economy’s tough right now,” DeMarchi said, “and I’ve got a secure job. So I just don’t want to throw myself out there.”

She said fellow dealers depart for other such markets as Las Vegas, Atlantic City, N.J., and the Gulf Coast. One friend in West Virginia has gone from dealing to a supervisory role, said DeMarchi, who has worked for 15 years at Foxwoods and is now a dual-rate dealer.

“To go from a dealer to a pit manager is kind of huge,” she said. “I guess that’s the way the business is. If you want to move up, you’ve got to move around.”